What's up with Mike O'Brien?

Is he about to take a job in the private sector or is he going to stay at City Hall?

Is the City Council going to offer him a contract extension or a new deal all together?

Or, is this council simply going to let things play out and let the newly elected City Council, which will have three new members, address Mr. O'Brien's employment status after it takes office in January?

Better yet, is this much ado about nothing?

It has been two months since Mr. O'Brien, the city's chief executive since 2004, advised the City Council of a job opportunity he said he has in the private sector.

He did so after informal discussions in late August with Boston-based WinnCompanies, a national real estate firm that specializes in the acquisition and redevelopment of residential and mixed-use properties, about whether he was interested in a job.

After some consideration, the manager said he advised Winn that he does have an interest in exploring such an opportunity, pending the appropriate disclosures to the City Council, which he made in mid-September.

But we haven't heard anything more from Mr. O'Brien since then about whether he has been pursuing the matter or whether he is still even interested in doing so.

At the same time, City Hall observers have been waiting to see what the City Council is going to do about the manger's contract.

In 2010, Mr. O'Brien received a three-year contract extension from the council that keeps him as the city's chief executive through March 2015.

Under the terms of the manager's contract, the council has to give him written notice on or before Sept. 24, 2014, on whether it intends to negotiate a subsequent contract for his services or simply allow his current contract to expire.

Since that deadline is still more than 10 months away, some folks might wonder why the council would want to rush to talk contract with Mr. O'Brien at this time.

Meanwhile, if Winn has offered Mr. O'Brien a job, you would think it would want to hear back from him with an answer soon regarding his intentions.

But before doing that, Mr. O'Brien probably wants to hear first from his boss, the City Council, about his future with the city.

Problem is, there seems to have been less of an urgency on the council to talk about extending his contract compared to three years ago.

Mr. O'Brien received his three-year contract extension from the council right after his job performance evaluation, even though his contract wasn't set to expire for another two years.

This time around things have been different. While Mr. O'Brien received another very favorable overall job review from the council in June, there hasn't any public talk about a contract extension by city councilors, not even any whispers.

Instead, the only talk has been about significantly increasing the annual salary for the position of mayor. Councilor-at-Large Joseph C. O'Brien has filed an order for Tuesday night's City Council meeting, in which he is asking to amend the city's salary ordinance so the mayor's annual salary is equal to twice the salary of a city councilor, effective Jan. 1, 2016, after the next municipal election. The annual salary for the mayor's position is currently $34,000, while city councilors are paid $29,000. Under Councilor O'Brien's proposal, the salary for the mayor would be boosted to $58,000, an increase of $24,000, for what is supposed to be a part-time job, though many of those who have held that office over the years will disagree with that. Under Worcester's council-manager form government, the mayor has no administrative or executive powers — the city manager is the chief executive — though he/she does serve chairman of the City Council and School Committee.

Is there anything to read into that?

Mayor Joseph M. Petty is one who firmly believes the manager's future employment status is very much a non-issue. He said he has full confidence in the city manager and supports him 100 percent, and he believes that many of his colleagues feel the same way.

Other city councilors have also talked publicly about their support for the city manager and their desire to see him stay at City Hall. No one is talking about wanting to see him go.

So, it would seem that this is very much a non-issue and that the City Council eventually is going to address Mr. O'Brien's future with the city.

But while Mr. O'Brien has never given any indication that he wants out as city manager, who is to say that he could not be swayed to leave if he receives an outside job offer that is difficult to refuse?

Also, he appears to have grown increasingly frustrated at times in his relations with the council in recent months.

Just last week, councilors haggled over his proposal to set a minimum selling price for the antiquated and vacant former Brown Square fire station at $1 to facilitate its redevelopment — much like the state agreed to sell the former Worcester District and Superior Court buildings at Lincoln Square to the city for just $1. Instead, some councilors felt the minimum price should be $50,000.

That same night, the council thumbed its nose at the manager's request to hold off on voting on a local foreclosure mediation ordinance until there is a resolution to a lawsuit over a similar ordinance in Springfield.

It also went against his advice several months ago to hold off on adopting a Responsible Employer Ordinance until the city was able to get clarity on the legality of some of its provisions that would likely occur through legal challenges to Quincy's Responsible Employer Ordinance that were before the court.

A subsequent U.S. District Court ruling effectively voided that similar ordinance in Quincy. In addition, the judge ordered that city to pay $81,000 in attorneys' fees to the Merit Construction Alliance, which successfully challenged the ordinances as unconstitutional and in violation of federal law.

Then again, it's not the City Council's job to rubber stamp everything the city manager says or recommends. There are going to be times when the elected officials and the chief executive aren't going to see eye-to-eye; that's only natural and goes with the territory of the council-manager form of government.

All this speculation about Mr. O'Brien's future may indeed be much ado about nothing, but it will be interesting to see what happens first:

Will the manager finally speak publicly about his intentions to further pursue a job in the private sector; or will the City Council signal its intentions regarding a contract for him?